Adding Extra Insulation To Attic Walls

Turn off the power to the outlet.

Adding extra insulation to attic walls. With boric acid added for fire resistance shredded recycled telephone books tax forms and newspapers all contribute to making safe cellulose insulation blown in cellulose is injected into the wall cavities by a series of holes drilled into either the inside or outside of the walls. You can do it yourself for about 500. Inspect the exterior walls by using an electrical outlet. There are various grades of insulating batting for different locations in the house so you ll need a different insulation for interior exterior attic or basement walls.

Batt or rolled insulation or blown loose fill insulation fiberglass or cellulose can be installed on top of old insulation. Fiberglass is just that thin fibers of glass that trap air. Cellulose is recycled newsprint treated with a fire retardant. It needs to be unfaced.

Block all vents in the attic floor with baffles making sure to extend the baffles at least four inches above the planned thickness of your insulation. Choose fiberglass insulation batting. If you use fiberglass over loose fill make sure the fiberglass batt has no paper or foil backing. Pull out a small amount of insulation if needed to help.

Pull down stair or ladder. Any existing batt or roll insulation in the attic should have the facing against the attic drywall floor or no facing at all. Insulation should be rolled out perpendicular to the joists and unfaced rolls should be used. You can add loose fill on top of fiberglass batts or blankets and vice versa.

When adding additional insulation you do not have to use the same type of insulation that currently exists in your attic. Affix rigid foam insulation to the attic side of the hatch or door. Blowing in attic cellulose is conceivably a do it yourself job. You should be able to see if there is insulation in the wall.

The grade of batting will vary depending on the wall that you re insulating. 3 have a friend add material to the hopper. Blown in insulation overview. As you keep adding more and more insulation you keep reducing the heat flow through the wall more and more.

Add weatherstripping around the perimeter and a sweep to the door of a walk up attic. The pros charge 1 500 to 2 000 to do a 1 200 sq ft. Use a zippered insulated tent to keep the enclosure draft free attic tent at 7 attic cover insulator 120. The r value of the batt measures the thermal resistance so the higher the r value the more effectively.

The blue line in all the graphs below shows the heat flow through the wall and the red columns show either the stepwise or cumulative reduction in heat flow compared to what it was with an r 2 r 11 or r 16 wall. If you need to add insulation in your attic save big by blowing in cellulose insulation yourself. Blowing attic insulation isn t hard but it s dusty sweaty work. Attic hatch or door.